To Love A Stranger
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Florence gets roped into giving an interview. Frederick's mother sees the broadcast. [Chocolate Box 2018 gift for SegaBarrett.]


Florence stays cautious of the trap that had ensnared so many of the men she's known: of returning to chess because it's what she knows better than anything else. Politicians try to use her, to build bridges or highways or smoke-filled trails to a bloc slumping towards perestroika, but she is wary that they are looking for triumphs to celebrate in the short term rather than achievements that might last. She bounces between nonprofits, and when she shows up at a tournament it's mostly to present trophies and shake hands before evading the spotlight's glare.

When the news crew shows up asking to interview her in a segment, she reassures herself they're actual journalists before asking more. It turns out they're trying to highlight the growth of chess among young girls, and she's a talking head to fill air time between the newest scholastic champion and some pundit wondering whether women just don't have killer instincts.

She accepts reluctantly, disappointed that there isn't anyone better to speak, someone who's succeeded on her own terms and not as an ancillary. But the questions are fine, banal even, and for a few minutes she tries to pretend that the game was ever just a game.

Every once in a while they follow up with her: asking her permission to rebroadcast elsewhere, yes, fine. The parents of kids in the tournament thank her for her support. And then the studio forwards her a letter that's made its way in stages, postage added in fits and starts, until it reaches her.

Candace Blumfeld—the name rings a bell, dimly, but how many letters from Freddie's legion of admirers had she thrown out without reading? When she opens it, though, it's the woman's face in the enclosed photographs that looks half-familiar. Jaw set, firm, challenging—Florence sees Freddie in his mother's face, more so than in the furtive, almost quiet child to the side.

It's clear Blumfeld harbors no illusions about Freddie's likely misfortunes; her language is plain, and she doesn't seem to have gotten her expectations very high. For a moment, Florence considers the idea of visiting the States herself. What is holding her in England, with the world growing smaller by the week?

But she'd spent more than enough time waiting for Freddie to change. What help he could use now, she's long past giving. She's not sure whether Blumfeld can do much good, either, but at least it's worth a try.

Instead, she writes her return address in small, poised letters, the same way she would take notation at the end of a game where the players were moving too fast to write themselves. If Freddie wants to replay the past, he knows where to find her.

* * *

Freddie opens the door to a gray-haired woman with a briefcase under her arm. He doesn't recognize her, and he doesn't think his landlord has changed _that_ drastically. "What?" he snaps.

"Frederick?" she asks.

No one's called him that. Not for years—

"What do you want, woman?" he blurts. She'll be after money he no longer has. Well, better that than glory he couldn't share if he wanted.

"Frederick, it's me, your mother—"

"I know who you are," he says. "How did you get here?"

"Drove."

That explains nothing. "How did you _find_ me?"

"Florence Vassy was on the news last month. Talking about young girls in chess."

Less than nothing. "You come alone?"

"Yes."

"Whatever happened to Jack?"

She breaks into a regretful smile. "Jack and I—haven't been together for some time."

He leans against the doorframe, not sure whether to be pleased or vaguely annoyed that she isn't so easy to resent as he'd hoped, now that she's here in person. "Uh, I'd invite you in, but I wasn't exactly expecting company today."

"That's fine," says Candace. "Is there somewhere we can walk around, maybe?"

"I think so," says Freddie. "Let me look for a map."

He turns and wanders into his apartment. Part of him wonders whether she'd vanish if he just grabbed a drink and didn't come out, but she's had to have covered some distance already. He doesn't think she's really going to leave at the first hurdle.

So he digs below layers of detritus to excavate a city map, sizes it up, and deposits it back on the counter. Candace is waiting outside, unmoved. "All right," he says, "this way."

They stride on bleak sidewalks, passersby not used to giving him a second glance. "I'm so happy to see you," Candace says.

"Yeah, well." He can't say the same. "I've looked better."

"I know."

"Are you angry at me?"

"What would I be angry about?"

The state of his apartment? The tantrums he's thrown on international news? "I...I've messed up," he says slowly, and for once it means something to say it to someone who wasn't there.

"Oh, Frederick," she says, "you do come by your temper honestly."

Is she comparing him to his father, or herself? The thought makes him shiver either way.

He finds the park, and the wind blows her jacket tighter around her as she approaches a bench. "Can I show you something?"

"Do I have a choice?" Part of him wants to say no, to spite her for the way she ignored him all those years. He is restless, though, and is not sure if he could stand not knowing—she was never the type to ask as a gambit if she didn't have something she thought mattered.

"Of course," she says blandly. "I may be old and slow, but I think I can find my way back to the car."

He is not sure if his frustration is entirely to do with Candace, or if he is caught in a vicious cycle, reflecting the weaknesses of other parents back on her. Gregor Vassy and Sergievsky were fools, leaving their children behind for dreams of freedom near at hand or across the seas. Or had he only hated them because he saw, in them, the worst of his own parents' humanity?

"No need," he says, perching on the bench and drawing out his boredom. "Not like I had anything better to do."

She sits beside him and opens the briefcase, clamping down on a flurry of pages inside to keep them out of the wind. Freddie gapes; he knows those articles, the successes and ignominy of Merano. She folds them over, and they go back earlier. His ascension to the championship, the challengers' tournament, and earlier still, every clipping she could save.

"You were—" He tries to keep his voice level. "Reading?"

"Everything," his mother says. "Watching the news. Getting my friends to send me copies, so I'd have extra."

"You could have written!" he yells. "Called, something!"

She glances up at him, eyes ingenuous. "I did."

When he had been on top of the world, what were letters from lesser mortals? He hadn't told Florence to look out for news from a Candace Blumfeld, and had certainly never broached the subject with Walter. "You know how it gets..." he trails off. Of course she didn't, didn't know anything of his world.

But she keeps quiet, instead just flipping through the yellowed pages. At the back of the briefcase is something new and sharp—an empty envelope? "What's this?" he asks.

"Just some mail," she says.

He holds it at arm's length, trying not to cut himself on the edges. Florence's handwriting leaps out at him. So his mother knew even she would be mature enough to keep an eye on him from halfway across the country.

"Could I, uh, keep it?"

"I don't see why not," Candace says.

He doesn't need Florence to be a parent anymore, but maybe someday they can speak as equals. And he hasn't needed Candace, either. That's what he's always told himself.

But she wants to know him. Not the champion, not the washout, not the patriot—Frederick. Maybe that's who he wants to be.

"Want to get dinner?" he offers. "I can drive."

His mother smiles. "I've been craving Mexican."

He's never liked the Mexican joint across town; their margaritas are overpriced, and they blast music at all hours of the night when he's driving by. But it's been a long time since he could do something for someone else. "That works."

As they walk back, him clutching the envelope, her refusing to relinquish the briefcase, he realizes he's going to wind up paying for dinner. He also realizes, more unsettingly, that he doesn't care.

The car is newer than he'd expected, dark green and compact. There's a suitcase in the trunk, where she stows her briefcase, and for a moment Freddie is full of questions—where has she been? doing what?—and not just about the last few weeks.

But there will be time for those, he figures. She digs out the keys, and for a moment he is a grinning, impetuous teenager as he takes the wheel.


End file.
